Smuggling El Salvador

A Salvadoran woman who was caught smuggling 3,780 endangered sea turtle eggs into the United States was sentenced Wednesday to six months in federal prison. Isabel Bonilla and her fugitive partner, Sebastian Guerrero Chacon, were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in October with eight boxes of eggs, which were concealed in bread balls, upon arrival from the Central American nation, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Erica Martin.

A Sylmar couple has pleaded not guilty to accusations that they paid to have a 9-year-old girl smuggled to the U.S. from Central America and forced her to work at their restaurant. Dora Alicia Valle, 50, and her live-in boyfriend, Estrada Melvin Sandoval, 40, were charged with one count each of human trafficking and slavery. The girl, now 11, was brought to the Los Angeles area from El Salvador in 2012, according to the L.A. County district attorney's office. The pair allegedly forced the girl to work four days a week at Costa Del Sol, a Pacoima restaurant that Valle owned.

A Sylmar couple has pleaded not guilty to accusations that they paid to have a 9-year-old girl smuggled to the U.S. from Central America and forced her to work at their restaurant. Dora Alicia Valle, 50, and her live-in boyfriend, Estrada Melvin Sandoval, 40, were charged with one count each of human trafficking and slavery. The girl, now 11, was brought to the Los Angeles area from El Salvador in 2012, according to the L.A. County district attorney's office. The pair allegedly forced the girl to work four days a week at Costa Del Sol, a Pacoima restaurant that Valle owned.

A Salvadoran woman who was caught smuggling 3,780 endangered sea turtle eggs into the United States was sentenced Wednesday to six months in federal prison. Isabel Bonilla and her fugitive partner, Sebastian Guerrero Chacon, were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in October with eight boxes of eggs, which were concealed in bread balls, upon arrival from the Central American nation, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Erica Martin.